Slightly tipsy

Good surf writing will never be about surfing. It can’t be. You cannot write about the act of surfing. Many have tried and nearly all end up writing indulgent, far-out, preposterous, esoteric wank. I say nearly all because occasionally someone gets it. But you know; it’s never a surfer. Captain Cook got it as did Jack London. Surfers are too wrapped up in it.

Curren’s cut back at Backdoor that Tom Servais captured is burned into the image bank of surfers all around the world; can you begin to imagine describing that in words?

 The same year Joli and Hornbaker both got the shot of Tom Carroll at pipe, yeah that one, pink Rawson gun, black helmet, SNAP!

 That’s just two moments in surfing that I remember from images in mags never mind all the mental images I have stored from my own attempts at riding. You can’t transport onto paper, in words of any language, those moments in those surfers lives. Ask them about it. Lot’s have and you know what, even from the horse’s mouth it’s not as good as the picture.

But people still try, and people read it and people pretend to get it and they have beards and glasses with no lenses and a lomo camera around their neck and ride a hull. And good on them, because they might as well be on that band wagon while it’s rolling. Wankers.

PS I promise my next entry will clear up what’s been happening with this Mug and from then on will become a more regular occurrence, although I can’t promise it won’t be more moaning from a grumpy old surfing wannabe